This opera releases on the big screen on Saturday, 11 April at Cinema Nouveau and select Ster-Kinekor cinemas countrywide, for limited screenings.
Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez star in Rossini’s bel canto tour-de-force
La Donna del Lago, in its first-ever Met and Live in HD performances. In this Rossini classic, based on the poem,
The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott, DiDonato sings the title role of Elena, the lady of the lake pursued by two men, with Flórez in his fifth Live in HD bel canto role, as Giacomo, the benevolent king of Scotland.
Michele Mariotti, last featured in the popular Live in HD broadcast of
Rigoletto, conducts debuting Scottish director Paul Curran’s staging, a co-production with Santa Fe Opera. The cast also includes Daniela Barcellona in the trouser role of Malcolm, John Osborn as Rodrigo, and Oren Gradus as Duglas.
The story takes place in Scotland in the first half of the 16
th century, during the reign of King James V, who is anecdotally said to have travelled throughout his kingdom in disguise as a commoner. His reign was filled with civil strife and war with neighbouring England. He was the father of Mary Stuart, who succeeded him as Queen of Scots when she was six-days-old. The Scotland of the 19
th-century Romantics’ imagination was a wild land where the usual rules of decorum didn’t apply. This imaginary place was to inspire generations of artists and musicians, including Donizetti (
Lucia di Lammermoor), Mendelssohn (
The Hebrides Overture), and many others.
One of Rossini’s most beautiful and expressive scores,
La Donna del Lago was a success in its premiere season (1819), and quickly travelled the world’s operatic stages. The extraordinary vocal writing - a rare combination of lyricism and virtuosity that requires high levels of musicality and stamina - attracted the best singers of the day.
The story itself provided additional interest for audiences:
La Donna del Lago was the first opera by a major composer to be based on the works of Sir Walter Scott, whose literary imagination would become hugely influential in the emerging artistic movement we now know as the Romantic era. Scott’s idealised vision of old Scotland was instrumental in the development of a national consciousness among his own people as well as in creating a fantasy landscape for foreigners, a wild and windblown land almost untouched by ‘civilization’.
A staple of the repertoire for several decades after its premiere,
La Donna del Lago disappeared from the stage in the mid-19
th century, along with many other works of the period. With the recent resurgence of interest in bel canto, these operas are once again being recognised for their sophisticated music and dramatic insights, embraced by a new generation of singers and by audiences around the world.
Containing a wealth of rapturously beautiful melody, the score of
La Donna del Lago is also an evocative reflection of the imagery of Scott’s poem. The semi-mythical setting is captured from the very first scene, with a chorus of peasants and hunting horns heard in the distance. Rossini uses the chorus in new and surprising ways in this opera, most notably toward the end of the first act, from the striking music of the bards (with male voices, harp, and pizzicato lower strings depicting a romantic vision of ancient Celtic sounds) to the finale, in which chorus, soloists, orchestra, and onstage band come together to create a scene of warlike wildness.
The Met: Live in HD performance of La Donna del Lago releases on Saturday, 11 April for limited screenings until Thursday, 23 April. The running time of this production is approx. three hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission.
For booking information on The Met: Live in HD season, visit
www.cinemanouveau.co.za or phone Ticketline on 0861 668 437. Alternatively, visit and like their page on
Facebook and follow them on
Twitter.